Free Republic

If you are frustrated by wait times to see your doctor, the cost of health insurance and prescription drugs, just wait until there may be no doctor to see. NBC News recently broadcast a story about how fewer young people are entering the medical profession. The network cited a report from the Association of American Medical Colleges that "projected a shortage of 42,600 to 121,300 physicians by 2030, up from its 2017 projected shortage of 40,800 to 104,900 doctors." Only part of it has to do with the high cost of medical school and lengthy residencies. I asked my longtime...

A few weeks ago, patients of Dr. Chad Savage received an alarming email. The Brighton, Michigan, primary care physician told them that because of skyrocketing medical costs such as “expensive medications, crushing doctor bills and double digit insurance premium increases,” he would have to raise his own office rates. By…. $0. “Yup! That’s right. Nothing! Zero, nada, zip,” his note said. As a direct primary care (DPC) physician, Savage — not insurance companies or government regulators — sets his own rates. His patients pay a monthly fee for unlimited access to office visits and free in-office testing and procedures. And...

AMY MOSES and her circle of self-employed small-business owners were supporters of President Obama and the Affordable Care Act. They bought policies on the newly created New York State exchange. But when they called doctors and hospitals in Manhattan to schedule appointments, they were dismayed to be turned away again and again with a common refrain: “We don’t take Obamacare,” the umbrella epithet for the hundreds of plans offered through the president’s signature health legislation. “Anyone who is on these plans knows it’s a two-tiered system,” said Ms. Moses, describing the emotional sting of those words to a successful entrepreneur....

Primary-care shortage is growing especially acute in rural areas and in parts of some cities. The doctor is disappearing in America. And by most projections, it’s only going to get worse — the U.S. could lose as many as 1 million doctors by 2025, according to a Association of American Medical Colleges report. Primary-care physicians will account for as much as one-third of that shortage, meaning the doctor you likely interact with most often is also becoming much more difficult to see. Tasked with checkups and referring more complicated health problems to specialists, these doctors have the most consistent contact...

Next year, doctors and hospitals will no longer get paid according to the fee for services model. They will get a fixed salary according to how well patients do. We will see the equivalent of patient report cards. Personalized care is out, government one-size fits all healthcare is in. The more tests, scans, surgeries that hospitals and doctors do, the less they will make. What could possibly go wrong? It will have a devastating effect on patients’ access to care. Patients who come back for the same problem will be included in the one-time bulk rate. Beginning next year, Medicare,...

The Obama administration on Monday announced an ambitious goal to overhaul the way doctors are paid, tying their fees more closely to the quality of care rather than the quantity. Rather than pay more money to Medicare doctors simply for every procedure they perform, the government will also evaluate whether patients are healthier, among other measures. The goal is for half of all Medicare payments to be handled this way by 2018. Monday’s announcement marks the administration’s biggest effort yet to shape how doctors are compensated across the health-care system. As the country's largest payer of health-care services, Medicare influences...

Kevin McCarthy of Thousand Oaks, California, was surprised last spring, when he learned his family doctor of 14 years could not accept the Blue Shield insurance he'd purchased under Obamacare. He said he was "outraged" because when he was shopping for his policy, Blue Shield confirmed his doctor was covered. "We were duped," McCarthy said. "Hoodwinked is another good term." Here's what happened. Insurance companies -- to save money -- are quietly selling what are called "narrow networks." They sharply restrict the number of doctors and hospitals people can see. In some cases, people may be limited to 30 percent...

It's not just patient sentiment against Obamacare that has soured lately. A stunning 215,000 doctors (and rising) refuse to accept Obamacare patients. BREAKING: 200 Thousand Doctors Dump ObamacareGary Franchi ended the above video with this thought: "It seems the biggest lie Obama told was calling his wide sweeping healthcare law - affordable". Related Stories CNN Money: Got Obamacare, can't find doctorsMiami Herald: Some South Florida docs decline to accept ObamacareForbes: When Will The Government Start Forcing Doctors To See Obamacare Patients?Daily Kos: Doctor Refuses Patient Because She Has ObamacareGodfather Politics: Doctors Refusing Obamacare Patients Good News - Bad News Good...

National insurance giant UnitedHealthcare plans to cut up to 700 Massachusetts doctors from its physician network for seniors enrolled in its private Medicare plan as a way to control costs, according to company officials. For elderly patients enrolled in the plan, the cuts mean they will have to find a new doctor or eventually switch to a new health plan that covers their current doctor. The move, effective Sept. 1, follows similar cuts made by the insurer to its Medicare Advantage provider networks in 11 other states... There is also pending legislation in Congress to prevent health plans from cutting...

We hear it every day, “the rich don’t pay their fair share”, “there is a deeper divide than ever between the rich and the poor”, “the rich are getting richer and the poor poorer”.Blah, blah, blah, it reminds me of an old record that keeps skipping and repeating itself over and over.It is just another political point that this administration uses to divide the people of this nation. Lots of talk, no solutions. They talk about the privileged 1% and how evil they are. They bloviate on how unfair it is that the rich take advantage of the poor and...

Conservatives have known from the start that the true purposes of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) are: 1.) the eventual implementation of single payer; and 2.) extortion of “acceptable” behavior on the part of the American people in return for life giving, medical care. And the deliberately catastrophic shortcomings created by the authors of ObamaCare have put this fraudulent healthcare scheme right on track to accomplish both. That the Affordable Care Act has little to do with providing healthcare–affordable or otherwise–could not be more obvious. If the intent of politicians was to provide access to medical care for America’s 30...

MOUNTAIN VIEW (KPIX 5) – While open enrollment for coverage under the Affordable Care Act is closed, many of the newly insured are finding they can’t find doctors, landing them into a state described as “medical homelessness.” Rotacare, a free clinic for the uninsured in Mountain View, is dealing with the problem firsthand. Mirella Nguyen works at the clinic said staffers dutifully helped uninsured clients sign up for Obamacare so they would no longer need the free clinic. But months later, the clinic’s former patients are coming back to the clinic begging for help. “They’re coming back to us now...

Lowering costs by forcing doctors and insurers to compete for millions of new patients is a primary goal of the nation's new health care law, but a group of gastroenterologists in the East Bay and internists near Chico are exposing a fissure in that plan. There often aren't enough doctors to go around.

Congratulations! You have successfully signed up for a truly excellent plan on the Covered California website! It's a really, really great plan. Really. Now, good look finding a doctor who will treat you. Los Angeles Times: After overcoming website glitches and long waits to get Obamacare, some patients are now running into frustrating new roadblocks at the doctor's office.A month into the most sweeping changes to healthcare in half a century, people are having trouble finding doctors at all, getting faulty information on which ones are covered and receiving little help from insurers swamped by new business.Experts have warned...

Many consumers faced hurdles signing up for Covered California health plans. Now they're having trouble finding in-network doctors. After overcoming website glitches and long waits to get Obamacare, some patients are now running into frustrating new roadblocks at the doctor's office. A month into the most sweeping changes to healthcare in half a century, people are having trouble finding doctors at all, getting faulty information on which ones are covered and receiving little help from insurers swamped by new business. Experts have warned for months that the logjam was inevitable. But the extent of the problems is taking by surprise...

The Los Angeles Times reports that once Obamacare customers navigate the confusing websites and pay the (often higher) premiums, they face a new problem: many doctors do not accept Obamacare insurance policies. It tells the story of a cancer patient who was turned away at the oncologist's office, and was only seen by a doctor once state regulators came to her rescue. Her story is not alone: millions will face the same problem. There are two reasons patients will be turned away: one that President Barack Obama hid, and one that he lied about. The first is that there is...

Failure: ObamaCare is driving millions of people into Medicaid, a program we now know does nothing to improve health and actually drives emergency-room use higher. A central premise of ObamaCare was that vastly expanding Medicaid would ultimately save health care dollars. The millions of uninsured gaining access to Medicaid would no longer crowd costly emergency rooms looking for care, the thinking went. And that improved access would keep them healthier. Turns out that neither of those claims is true.

Those signing up for private health care coverage on the ObamaCare exchanges may be in for an unpleasant surprise -- they'll have insurance, but they might have trouble getting the doctor to see them. Just as with Medicaid, analysts warn that if payments get too low, many doctors might start refusing to see patients. That will leave more and more patients jockeying to see fewer and fewer doctors. They emphasize, then, that having health insurance won't necessarily translate into access to health care.

The business of treating patients via telehealth in the U.S. will dramatically increase to nearly $2 billion in revenue within five years due to a confluence of events in the health care industry from doctor shortages to provider payment changes under the Affordable Care Act. A new report from information and analytics firm IHS says revenue expansion of the teleheath space — which allows doctors and other providers to monitor patients remotely via various devices, computers and related digital technology – will grow to $2.2 billion in 2018 in the U.S. from $240 million this year. The trend toward telehealth...

Despite being one of the bluest states in the country and one of the first to implement state based Obamacare exchanges, doctors in California are boycotting Obamacare...a whopping 70 percent of them. An estimated seven out of every 10 physicians in deep-blue California are rebelling against the state's Obamacare health insurance exchange and won't participate, the head of the state's largest medical association said. So why exactly the push back? Under Obamcare, doctors are practically expected to work for free. “We need some recognition that we’re doing a service to the community. But we can’t do it for free. And...